1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an installation method for installing multiple applications at once using an installer that has a function for installing applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when installing multiple applications in an information processing apparatus, the installation is generally performed using one of the following two programs. One is a program that has a function for installing a single application in the information processing apparatus (a standalone installer). The other is a program that calls multiple standalone installers in order (an integrated installer). All the applications are installed by the integrated installer executing the standalone installers in order.
Each standalone installer typically prompts a user to perform various operations at the time of execution, such as the display of and agreement/disagreement with an end user license agreement, the specification of the installation destination folder, and so on. Therefore, there is a problem in that when the integrated installer calls multiple standalone installers, the amount of effort required by the user to make such inputs increases as more standalone installers are called, placing a burden on the user.
Accordingly, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-048527 discloses a method in which information to be input by a user is saved in a specific location in advance and installation is carried out based on that information in order to eliminate the effort required by the user to make inputs for each standalone installer. Through this method, the installation can be performed without requiring unnecessary effort on the part of the user.
Meanwhile, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-100083 discloses a method for eliminating effort on the part of a user by not displaying windows for the end user license agreements or installation destination specifications of individual installers, or displaying such windows but proceeding to the next window after a set amount of time.
When installing multiple applications using an integrated installer, there may be situations where not all the applications have the same specifications. For example, the specifications of the standalone installers for three types of applications (X, Y, and Z) are sometimes different.
Accordingly, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H11-353187 discloses a method in which the specifications of multiple types of standalone installers are unified so as to provide an integrated installer with error codes that have been unified in advance. The integrated installer can then check those error codes and display a predetermined error message.
However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-048527 has a limitation in that it is necessary to save the information to be input by a user in a specific location in advance. There is a further problem in that such information does not yet exist when performing the first installation, and thus the information ultimately must be input.
Meanwhile, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-100083 has a problem in that if the user is not looking at the screen, the installer will assume that the user has agreed with the end user license agreement even if s/he has not agreed therewith. Furthermore, even if an error occurs during the installation process and the installation fails, the process will nevertheless advance on its own. Such a case poses a problem in that even if the reason for the failure is displayed on the screen, the process will advance to the next screen while the user is not looking, and thus the user cannot know what the reason for the failure was.
Furthermore, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H11-353187, it is necessary to modify all of the multiple standalone installers whose specifications originally are different. Thus there is a problem in that because the unification of error codes deals with the fundamentals of the specifications, the stated modifications involve many man-hours for development, a high cost, and so on. Moreover, depending on the standalone installer, there are cases where circumstances render the modification impossible, and therefore this method cannot be used in such cases. Finally, if a special problem hitherto unrecognized has been found in a certain standalone installer and that problem cannot be expressed by any of the error codes defined thus far, it is necessary to revise the error codes. In such a case, modifications based on new specifications are required not only in the standalone installer in question, but in the other standalone installers and the integrated installer as well. The result is a problem in that a minor modification ultimately affects the entire system.